Truck journalist 36 years, who joined Heavy Duty Trucking in 1998 and has retired. He was the trucking press’ leading authority on legislative and regulatory affairs.
He interpreted and analyzed complex issues, laws and regulations. Former editor of Transport Topics. He earned 14 Jesse Neal honors.
A bipartisan pair of House Representatives invoked the spirit of conservative champion Ronald Reagan to push for a fuel tax increase to revive the Highway Trust Fund. Reps. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., and Tom Petri, R-Wisc., called for passage of a bill to raise the tax and quoted from Reagan’s 1982 call to do the same.
President Obama’s move to let some undocumented immigrants stay in the country clears the way for them to become professional truck drivers, but that path is neither simple nor quick.
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is looking for comments on a plan to raise insurance minimums for carriers and establish insurance requirements for brokers and freight forwarders.
The Department of Transportation will not deliver its comprehensive study of the truck size and weight issue on time. In an email notice Monday, the department said it will delay delivery of the study until next year.
The truck safety enforcement community has joined the industry effort to get the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to hide CSA safety data from public view. In a November 14 letter to Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx, the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance said that Safety Measurement System scores should be available to police but not to the public.
Few truck drivers feel they are harassed by their employers or shippers, and drivers who use electronic logs experience no more harassment than those who use paper logs. Those are the key findings of a survey by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.
Trucking interests are preparing a request for temporary flexibility in the hours of service rules to help ease the congestion that is plaguing major ports. “We need some relief now,” said Curtis Whalen, executive director of the American Trucking Associations Intermodal Motor Carriers Conference.
The Republican sweep in the mid-term elections changes the players, but it is too soon to know how it will affect transportation policy.
A proposal that could eventually lead to higher insurance requirements for trucking companies is close to publication. An advanced notice of the proposal is under review by the White House Office of Management and Budget and can be expected to show up in the Federal Register this year.
Truck drivers who use prescribed narcotics should not be allowed to drive, say the doctors who advise the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. That could mean changes in driver medical exams.
It will take another year to launch a pilot program to see if drivers can safely split their sleeper berth rest time. The option is being pushed by carriers and drivers who believe more flexible rules could actually reduce driver fatigue.
The doctors who advise the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration are recommending closer scrutiny of drivers using Schedule II drugs, such as opioid-containing prescription pain relievers and medications for attention deficit disorder.
Truck drivers should not use hands-free phones while driving, says the National Transportation Safety Board. The Board’s recommendation was one of several changes it wants the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to make in the wake of a 2013 truck-train crash that caused a derailment, hazmat fire and explosion.
The fight over the 34-hour restart broke out again Thursday. A safety advocacy group released research indicating that the public does not want truck drivers to work longer hours, and trucking groups jumped in.
Owner-operator and labor groups registered their objections to the decision this week by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to grant normal status to Mexican carriers that had been operating under a pilot program.
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